Meanwhile in Germany: https://paymentandbanking.com/en/tag/bonpflicht-en/
Since January 1, 2020, the receipt requirement has been in force in Germany, and retailers and restaurateurs must issue a receipt for every transaction.
Well, it’s not mandatory to print a receipt in Germany. Only the purchase itself needs to be recorded and the receipt can be issued in a digital form as well. It’s up to the retailers how they want to implement this.
Let’s take the two local bakeries in my neighborhood as an example. One still issues paper receipts and complains since three years about this law with witty share pics that he has to raise prices because of all the paper he needs to buy and that the government does not trust family businesses. And the other one simply provides a QR code on the cash registry’s screen which I can scan within 60 seconds to download the receipt (if I want to) or he prints one if asked to do so.
In fact, I do not see big differences to the situation in France.
That works to combat tax fraud though. Cash payment is incredibly popular in Germany, partly because many stores or restaurants outright refuse card payments to avoid paying taxes.
Wait… are you saying some Germans doesn’t respect the law? Is it possible for a German?
That works to combat tax fraud though
If there only was a way to do something like this electronically…
There’s no obligation to provide a paper “Bon,” stores can just offer digital receipts by default.
If there only was a way to do something like this electronically…
There is, the receipts don’t have to be paper-based, they can be an email - REWE does that for example, if you have a loyalty card.
What they didn’t manage to do is find a way to do it electronically without some sort of profile/registration.
How is that supposed to combat tax fraud? Nobody keeps their receipts, and in the end if im not offered one when i dont want one, im not gonna ask for it
The receipt is printed by a certified cash register. It even has a digital signature at the bottom.
Sure, the receipt will be thrown away, but the register keeps a record. So store owners can check in their employees and tax authorities can check on the owners.
The receipt is irrelevant except for ensuring that the purchase is in record.
It’s much harder to run a tax-free cash-only side business if everyone expects a receipt and the receipt printer has an audit trail.
Meanwhile, French elites take their private jets to celebrate the success by vacationing (totally not off-setting the carbon savings)
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand receipts are probably nothing in the scale of pollution in general. On the other hand the paper receipts are printed on is non-recyclable whatsoever (due to the wax layer), so it can only end up in a landfill or burned. However forcing service providers and sellers to issue receipts ensures they pay tax on the goods and services sold. Perhaps secret shopper type of control by the tax bureau would make them do that anyway. Don’t know what to think
In Sweden there are digital mailboxes that are considered just as bound to you as physical mail boxes (normal email is considered too flimsy for official mail etc).
If you have such a mailbox a lot of stores will send the receipt digitally instead of printing it at the POS. Although it only works if they know who you are (i.e you basically have to have a membership with the store).
Kivra and such are privately owned, and it seems foolish to trust them with all your data. One should use Min Myndighetspost as a digital mailbox for government-mails, and encourage places to have alternative options (Hemköp and Willys lets you see your receipts on their own websites for example)
The paper commonly used for receipts is thermal paper, which doesn’t usually have any wax in it. But it’s still not recyclable due to the other chemicals in it.
True. Some shops (only Lidl where I live so far) switched to blue receipts, which apparently can be recycled with paper
Not sure if there’s a scheme in place here in Scotland or UK, but I always get asked if I want a receipt or not for several years now. Receipts and plastic bags are only by request. The main exceptions seem to be restaurants and public transport.
However, my local supermarket has installed receipt scanning barriers at the self checkout - so those used to have optional receipts, but no longer. I guess profits before environment.
We have them at self checkouts here in Norway. Can’t get out of the store without them. I do not like it
In the Netherlands the terminals ask if you want a full receipt or a short one with just the barcode to exit.
What exactly does the bar code encode? I suppose it must be the unique identifier of the receipt. Can you look it up on the web? Or is it only useful to the employees of the store?
Fossil Fuels, Manufacturing and Agriculture are the largest polluters in the world, they always have been, this is not a mystery, so when governments take enforcement of green friendly policies down to the consumer level, they are play acting at doing something, all whilst their political constituents and contributors continue to keep doing the same fucking things. Year after year, decade after decade, but sure tell me again how home gas stoves, and plastic straws are gonna save the planet while shell, ford and monsanto keep pumping florocarbons into the atmosphere. We have the technology to go completely green at the industrial level, it’s just “the wrong people” would be getting paid for energy instead of the villains which always have been.
My understanding of the push on gas stoves is more health reasons, such as the increased link to asthma in children.
Even as someone with a gas stove, I don’t really see an issue with that. Things get restricted and banned for health & safety all the time. When I was growing up, cigarettes were everywhere and now you barely see them. Seems a weird hill to die on.
If they wanted to reduce the amount of useless receipts to curb consumption, just put a tax on receipt paper at the point of manufacturing. Increase the price there, and the market will automatically use less of it. And the tax can then be used to mitigate the effects of what receipt paper is produced.
It’s far, far easier to regulate a dozen (or fewer) paper companies than it is to regulate millions of retail points of sale. The same goes for plastic: If the price of a gram of plastic included mitigating the effects of producing it, the price would be higher and therefore there would be less of it. And that which exists will be less likely to be wasted.
Externalities are one place where free market theory breaks down and needs regulation. Taxing at the source puts a price on this externality as soon as it enters the market, so the market can adapt to it.
